All I Want For Christmas Is Words, Goats And A Chicken

I’ll be honest here. The last little while, I’ve been having a hell of a time with the part of my brain that comes up with thoughts and words and then turns them into blog posts. I don’t exactly know why and I doubt I ever will, but it’s happening and it’s frustrating. Perhaps the last few years of waiting for the next garbage thing to happen has finally started to wear on me. That’s as good a guess as any, and probably as close to a right one as I’m going to get.

But I do want too use whatever words I do have at the moment to wish you all a happy holiday.

If you’ve got Christmas shopping to do, you have my sympathies. Christ, it was hard this year. Carin and I got ours done, but it came way closer to the wire than we’re used to. Nobody knew what they wanted this year, and we had just as many ideas. When even the kids on your list are difficult, you know it’s a tough year.

We’re doing Christmas with my family this year, which means four gatherings in five days. My favourite! But like I always say when I’m talking myself out of being annoyed by that, at least I’ve got people to gather with. Hopefully you all do too if that’s your thing and I hope you have a lovely time with them.

And now I will leave you with a couple of things you can listen to during those gatherings.

“O Holy Night,” sung by a bunch of goats. I like to think that the screaming one is screaming because he is also creeped out by the sound of goats.

And a much more pleasant version of “All I Want for Christmas Is you” than the one to which we are generally subjected.

You’re welcome, and merry Christmas!

Almost Renewing Online With ServiceOntario Is An Almost Great Experience

I had to renew my health card and Ontario Photo Card this week. Since you can renew a lot of these things online now if you don’t need a new photo (thanks, Covid), I thought I’d give it a try. I had a picture taken last time I was in and I haven’t moved or done anything else that might cause a problem, so I figured I’d be golden.

I was almost right.

Renewing the photo card couldn’t have gone smoother. You enter the numbers from your current card, answer a couple of questions, pay the fee and you’re off to the races. Other than the extra required blind guy time it takes to do things like get the numbers into a readable state, I had that done in maybe five minutes.

the health card started off similarly. Answered some questions, typed in some numbers, hit the button…”beginning of error messages,” it said.

Error messages? What did I do wrong? Everything here looks correct.

The site, which had up to this point been surprisingly pleasant to use, was no help whatsoever in answering that question.

Above the info I had entered, it said that perhaps the card numbers or my postal code were incorrect. Didn’t bother telling me which one, just that they might be. I checked several times. They were not. Below it, it said that what I had entered did not match the information on file. Well duh, my friend. If you think it’s wrong, of course it’s not going to match.

Puzzling over this for a moment, Carin wondered, quite logically, whether I had perhaps done things in the wrong order. You need your photo card to renew your health card, so since you renewed that first, maybe it invalidated it.

Well crap. Maybe it did.

So it was off to ServiceOntario with me.

If I’ve never said it, I’ll say right here that as much as one can love a government office, I love the Service Ontario on Manitou Drive in Kitchener. Every time I have to deal with them, they’re always friendly and helpful. I mean that in the usual explaining everything sense, but also from a blind person who might need a little extra help perspective. And man, that place can move! Whether there are three people waiting or we’re lined up out the door, I’m always in and out of there in no time at all. Give those people all of the money at pay raise time, Doug.

This time was no different. There was no line, so I was able to walk in and talk with somebody right away. I explained to him what happened and he said that the website is “notorious for doing this to people.” I handed over my health card and my photo card. Not even the temporary printout you have to carry between the time when you renew and when your new one comes in the mail, just the current card. That put to rest any thoughts of my having gotten the order of operations wrong. And any further worries I had that maybe I really did enter something incorrectly were also quickly torpedoed when he came back a few seconds later and said “I found your problem. You need a photo.”

A photo? Really? The very thing the website told me would stop an online renewal in its tracks, and it couldn’t tell me that? Brutal! That’s day one, basic, must have upon rollout functionality, guys! And it not being there ruined what was an otherwise very good user experience.

I’ll definitely use the online system again, even though I’m worried that I’m going to need a new frigging picture every time. They say you need one every 10 years, but I was under the impression that they were going to start using the same photo for both cards. The way my timing worked out, I was absolutely due for a new health card photo, but I got one taken for the Ontario Photo Card five years ago that I thought would be valid for this. Apparently not. I guess I’ll see what happens in 2028.

Use The Back Entrance

I was starting to worry that I had run out of good misheard lyrics stories, especially now that I don’t listen to a lot of music with dad anymore. But that fear, apparently, was misplaced.

I have tears in my eyes right now as I hear from my brother about a conversation he had yesterday.

Person: “So if they’re trying to ban “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” because it’s about rape or whatever, why do they allow all these other songs to stay?”
Bro: “Like which songs?”
Person: “What about the one about those gay guys building things? I heard it on the radio when I was looking for a station.”
Bro: “Not sure I know that one.”
Person: “It’s some old song. It literally says “a gay pair of guys put up a parking lot!” I have no problem with it, but how did society not get that banned!?”

Upon his recovery, the poor guy did his best to explain that while there may have been gays involved in the construction of said parking lot, that they are not explicitly mentioned in the vocal retelling of the story. Better yet, he tells me he isn’t sure that she’s convinced. Dear god.

Here are the real, gay-free lyrics, complete with the part about how “They paved paradise And put up a parking lot”.

In Other Burrito News…

While writing up that last post, I decided to run a search for “burrito” in the big archive O stuff that Carin and I affectionately call Mini Google just to see if I was hanging on to anything that might be helpful. I wasn’t, but I did find a couple of things from earlier this year that are relevant to our interests, so let’s knock those out now, why don’t we?

  1. We’ve established that throwing burritos is a wrong thing to do. But if you absolutely must, at least hit the right person.

    Investigators were called Wednesday evening to Rick’s Reef, a St. Pete Beach eatery, due to a “female subject yelling at customers.”
    The woman in question was Sarah Anne Kochera, 46, who lives with her boyfriend at his condo just down Gulf Boulevard from Rick’s.
    A witness told police that Kochera “was in a verbal dispute” with a man not identified in an arrest affidavit. At one point, Kochera “threw a burrito at this subject.”
    But the airborne burrito did not strike the man with whom Kochera quarreled. Instead, the Mexican delicacy “hit the victim in the face.” The affidavit does not indicate whether the victim was injured by the burrito.
    Kochera departed the restaurant before cops arrived. But she “remained nearby and was not cooperative with deputies.”

    Anybody else hear a name like Sarah Kochera and immediately break into song?

  2. Good: Offering an upset customer some free food because the soda machine isn’t working.
    Bad: Filling it with poison …allegedly.

    Deputies found that there was a heated exchange between a customer and employees due to the soda machine not working. The customer was eventually given an extra burrito and went home, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
    Several hours later, around 7:50 p.m., a hospital contacted the Sheriff’s Office and reported that they were caring for a patient who had eaten at Taco Bell and ingested rat poison. The hospital confirmed there was indeed rat poison in the burrito, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
    Investigators determined that the sick individual was the same person involved in the earlier disturbance. Deputies responded to his home, the hospital and the Taco Bell to begin an investigation.

    “How could he tell the difference between the rat poison and Taco Bell’s usual ingredients?” asked someone looking for a way to end a post.

Would You Like Community Service With That?

Barb sent this along, saying that it was a food feud sentence she could get behind. I agree. You obviously can’t do things like this in every case, but since no one appears to have been seriously hurt, this is as good a time as any to give it a go.
Woman who threw hot burrito bowl at Chipotle worker sentenced to fast food job

Don’t worry, there’s also some jail time involved, as there should be. But if Rosemary Hayne spends two months working 20 hours a week at a fast food restaurant, she’ll spend 60 days less there than she would have otherwise.

Russell was working as a manager at the Chipotle in Parma, Ohio, in September when Hayne ordered a plain chicken burrito bowl. 
“She just didn’t like the way I made her food. I made her food twice, and she had left the building, checked her food in the car, and she came back and started yelling at me and my crew, disturbing my customers,” Russell said.
“Next thing I know, I had food in my face, dripping from my hair.”
A video of the attack that circulated on social media shows the woman slamming the bowl down on the counter before lobbing it at Russell.

Russell says she had just prepared the food, so it was quite hot. But, ultimately, she says she suffered “a few bruises, but nothing too major.”

Like I said, I hope this works out. Sometimes when you walk a mile in another person’s shoes, it really can change you. But I can’t help but be just a little bit worried when I read this part here that we might have a repeat offender on our hands.

According to Fox News affiliate WJW, Hayne apologized in court to Russell and said there was no excuse for her behaviour.
Nevertheless, she continued to defend her actions as the judge handed her sentence down.
“You didn’t get your burrito bowl the way you like it and this is how you respond?” Parma Municipal Court Judge Timothy Gilligan said to her. “You went in there looking for a fight.”
“I did not,” Hayne responded. “If I showed you how my food looked, and how my food looked a week later from that same restaurant, it’s disgusting looking.”
“I bet you won’t be happy with the food you are going to get in the jail,” the judge retorted.

I hope I’m wrong, but saying there’s no excusing what I did and then immediately making excuses for it is not the best start.

Zombie Claus

Here we are, a week into December, and somehow I’m not totally sick of Christmas music yet. Usually the world has that taken care of by Halloween, but I suppose being laid low for a decent bit of November by all the crud going around and a Covid shot might have its advantages after all.

Anyway, if you’re looking for some Christmas music, I have some for you. And it’s actually fun, so bonus.

And if you’re thinking to yourself where do I know the name Psychostick from, maybe it’s Carin’s old post about finding a dentist. Maybe it’s not, but go listen to the dentist song anyway.

The Christmas one is better.

The News Blooper Videos For October And November


With all those hot lovers, no wonder the news is on Tinder now. And I wonder how that air fried turkey turned out. Is everyone ok?

And here, because I didn’t get around to posting it at the time, is the video for October. I’ll warn you though: It’s the first time I ever watched one of these and didn’t laugh. Not sure if it’s that a lot of it was too visual, my frame of mind at the time or if it’s just not funny, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. But at least it’ll give you all something to do until one of us gets around to posting again.

This Is The Schlong…


I think it’s kind of weird that people feel the need to fill their homes with surveillance cameras that are constantly monitoring everything they do and potentially sharing it with the whole world because the security on those things can be pretty damn bad, but maybe it’s all worth it if you can catch one home inspector turning your 2-year-old’s Tickle Me Elmo doll into a friggin bio hazard.

VanLuven was inspecting the Oxford Township home on behalf of a potential purchaser. The home’s owners had let VanLuven, another inspector, the buyers, and a real estate agent into the property.
When the inspection began, the owners and their two small boys left the three-bedroom house. After two hours had passed, homeowner Jaida Dodson remotely accessed her home security cameras to check on the progress of the inspection.
At a court hearing last year, Dodson testified that she saw VanLuven remove a Tickle Me Elmo doll that had been among stuffed animals stored in a small teepee tent in the bedroom of Dodson’s two-year-old son. VanLuven then allegedly “unzipped his pants and began masturbating in our son’s closet with his Tickle Me Elmo,” Dodson recalled.

After Dodson called police, an officer confronted VanLuven at the residence. The cop reported that VanLuven “admitted to placing his penis in Elmo’s mouth, in the doll’s mouth” and “apologized and said he was ashamed.”

He was found guilty of one count of aggravated indecent exposure, but acquitted of malicious destruction of property. I can only assume that the property in question was poor Elmo, which is pretty funny, actually.

Clean Up Your Act, You Two

As a blind person living in a big apartment building, I sort of understand this. Only difference between him and I is that he’s calling just because his clothes were removed and I’d be calling to self-report the beating that I could not guarantee I would be able to refrain from giving to the person who removed them. Or more likely, I’d be calling for help with pulling Carin off of that person. Do not mess with Carin on laundry day! And keep your damn hands off of other people’s laundry, for god’s sake. You’re not that busy.

Officers responded to a 911 call at a residence Sept. 23 and learned that a man had called because his sister had taken his clothes out of the washing machine without his permission.
It was his third load of laundry, and the woman said she took it out because it was taking too long.
The man, 27, wanted to pursue charges against his sister for touching his laundry, but officers advised him that no crime had been committed.
They were both told to work out the matter as adults, since they were living together in their grandmother’s house.